Braving rough seas to scale offshore wind turbine towers of 85 metres high is not a job for the faint-hearted. But it is something that 28-year-old Daniel Walker does regularly as an offshore service technician.

Daniel oversees the scheduled and unscheduled maintenance for offshore wind turbines on a variety of wind farms on the East coast of the UK.

“On a typical day I arrive at work at 6.30am to receive a morning brief of the work ahead and how to perform this work safely. Siemens has a remote 24-hour monitoring station for the turbines so we know immediately which ones need repairing. When possible, we try to combine this unplanned activity with planned annual service maintenance tasks,” explains Walker.

“We operate in teams of two technicians minimum per turbine and by 7.00am we are on board a 12-man vessel which takes us out to the turbines which can be many anything from 5km off the coast and spaced many hundreds of metres apart. The new generation turbines will be as much as 30 kms off the coast. We are 100 per cent reliant on the wave, tide, current, sea swell and wind conditions to reach them.

Siemens operates a Zero Harm safety policy, so work has to be postponed if the transfer conditions are unfavourable, for example if the wave height exceeds a certain acceptable height.

Daniel enjoys the variety of work his career brings. “A turbine is a piece of machinery which is in operation for 25 years so it’s prone to wear and tear. I fix all types of mechanical or electrical defects. I also do annual services on all the turbines, such as changing the oil and hydraulic filters, topping up the auto-greasing systems and bolt torquing. We also undertake retrofits to upgrade parts of the turbines. Whatever the issue, we aim to fix it as soon possible so the turbine is operational within a couple of hours to enhance productivity. However, we don’t operate on time pressure but only on achieving high level, preventative maintenance in a completely safe manner

Daniel qualified as an electrical and mechanical engineer at Hull College before joining the Royal Navy as a marine engineer for five years, joining Siemens as an offshore service technician four years ago

Like all offshore wind turbine engineers, Daniel gained climbing and advanced rescue qualifications at Siemens’ dedicated wind power training school in Newcastle, which boasts two full-scale nacelles and towers for training purposes, where he also takes a compulsory annual refresher course.